


A Weekend at Aunt Rachel's

by kavkakat



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, all those creepypasta stories about that one relative you have, and then you have to go visit them, that lives out int eh middle of nowhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 10:13:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1978947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kavkakat/pseuds/kavkakat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dee and her sister Katie get dropped off at their Aunt Rachel’s for a weekend of fun that turns deadly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Weekend at Aunt Rachel's

**Author's Note:**

> This was totally written five years ago, but I still like it.  
> Posted first to my [tumblr](http://kavkakat.tumblr.com/tagged/a-weekend-at-aunt-rachel%27s).

Deanna Roberts stepped out of the van with a cynical look on her face. She was in the middle of _hicksville_. There was really no other word for it. Fields enveloped the property, starting with a cornfield right next door. The house itself wasn’t horrible, but it was definitely a fixer-upper. The paint was peeling, shutters were missing, and Dee wondered how long it would be until the porch fell in.  
  
She hoped there was running water.  
  
“Move it, will you?” Katie, Dee’s twin sister, asked impatiently. Dee realized she’d been blocking the door to the van and stepped out of the way. She walked around to the back, where her dad had already unloaded her and her sister’s duffel bags. He was tall and thin – where Dee got her build from – but could easily lift both duffels onto his shoulders.  
  
Still, Dee was mad at him for exiling her to her aunt’s house, so she took her bag before he got the chance to stop her and went back around to the front of the car, where her mom was chattering away about how much fun her daughters would have. Dee scowled, thinking that _she’d_ have more fun in the city, where her parents were going for the Green Convention all weekend.  
  
But no; Katie and Dee “weren’t old enough to understand everything at the Con” (meaning that Mrs. Roberts thought they just weren’t smart enough), so here they were, at the crossroads of middle-of-nowhere and hicksville, with only their cell phones to connect them to the outside world.  
  
“Now, doesn’t this look nice?” Mrs. Roberts asked, falsely cheerful. Dee knew her mom really thought the house was hideous, and only shrugged. Both her parents were being excommunicated. Mrs. Roberts didn’t get it. “Well, I suppose it’s not as nice as back home, but think about it! It’ll be like being in one of those books you’re always reading!”  
  
“Oh, sure. Always wanted to be in a horror novel,” Dee muttered. “Am I the dumb blonde who dies during sex, or the smart blonde who’s tortured for about a chapter?”  
  
Katie, who had come up behind Dee for the second part of that, snorted in laughter. She knew that Dee found horror novels interesting for the killers, but could never actually watch a movie with more blood in it than _Mulan_.  
  
“Oh, Deanna,” Mrs. Roberts sighed, frowning. She looked like she was about to launch into one of her guilt rants – like Dee wasn’t impervious to them by now – but she just sighed and shook her head. Then she said, “Now, I phoned Auntie Rachel a couple days ago, to get her prepared, but she might have forgotten by now. She’s a rather old woman; they’re like that.”  
  
Dee rolled her eyes and turned away. Her mom was such a ditz – where Katie and Dee got their blonde hair from – and she really wouldn’t be surprised if her aunt didn’t even know Dee and Katie existed. She almost asked her parents to take them to the city, just give it one last try, but her mom and dad were already back in the van, preparing to drive away.  
  
“I see Auntie Rachel just over there, coming back from the cornfield, but we’d better not stay – you know how old women talk and talk,” Mrs. Roberts was saying, revving the engine. Dee just stared at her in disbelief; she was going to leave them here, without even making sure they got inside? Dee couldn’t even see her aunt. But then her mom went on, “Now, we need to get to the Con soon, else it’ll start without us! Be good to your aunt, girls! See you Monday!”  
  
“Have fun!” Mr. Roberts called as well, but the van was already driving away, a cloud of dust coming from its back wheels. The sisters were trapped here, for better or worse.  
  
Katie laughed suddenly, a kind of sarcastic chuckle. She slung her arm over Dee’s shoulders and started towards the porch. She said, “Well, maybe if we just sleep a lot, it’ll be over soon.”  
  
“The beds probably have roaches in them, idiot,” Dee replied, but didn’t remove her twin’s arm. “And I don’t want to stay here unless I know there’s someone else here. Have you ever _seen_ Aunt Rachel?”  
  
“No, but I bet she’s inside,” Katie said. “Let’s knock.”  
  
The sisters climbed the steps to the porch – they creaked. Dee worried that they’d fall through the rotting wood and into a termite nest. At the top, she looked for a doorbell, but couldn’t see one at all. Then she saw the knocker – a large, brass configuration in the shape of a gaping demon, the knocker held in its curled tongue. Dee’s mouth felt dry.  
  
Katie let the knocker fall against the door a few times, and then the echoes reverberate. Dee peered through a nearby window. The room was dark, the furniture inside covered with cloth. Dust was everywhere. “God, do people even live here?” Dee muttered, lip curling at the thought of being trapped here until her parents came back.  
  
Suddenly, the door opened with a monstrous creak. Dee jumped back into the railing around the porch, her heart pounding. Katie grabbed for her hand, and both sisters peered fearfully into the gloom inside.  
  
“Don’t be scared of Jimmy, darlings,” a voice said from behind them.  
  
The sisters spun around, a terrified cry on Dee’s lips.  
  
At the bottom of the porch stairs hunched an old woman. Her face was lined with tales from a hundred years, unreadable save for those who had been there. Dee wondered if anyone who had was still living. The woman’s hands were thin and gnarled, curled protectively around the handle of a covered wicker basket. Her eyes glimmered up at them like moonstones. Dee shuddered.  
  
“He means no harm, really,” the woman said again, and Dee realized she was staring.  
  
“Jimmy?” Katie asked, recovering her tongue before her sister. “Is that our cousin?”  
  
The woman – Aunt Rachel – made a strange sign with her left hand, fingers moving too fast for Dee’s eyes to follow, and her eyes flashed unnervingly. Dee felt a little sleepy for a second, but shook herself awake. Horror movie 101: never trust the creepy old woman.  
  
Then Aunt Rachel smiled and started to hobble up the steps: creak-creak, creak-creak, creak-creeeeeeeak. She hunched between the sisters and made her way into the house. Dee saw a rusty brown stain on the back of her apron and shuddered again, involuntarily. Aunt Rachel saw her staring and grinned, revealing missing teeth. “Well don’t just stand there; come on in!”  
  
Dee looked at Katie, who shrugged and followed the old woman. Dee looked back at the dirt drive leading to civilization and wondered if she could walk ten miles before dark. No, she decided and, with a strange sense of foreboding, stepped into the house.  
  
The door closed behind her with a thud.

 

  
  
Dee wrestled with the window in her room, trying to open it. She braced her palms against the bottom and shoved as hard as she could. With a shrill squeal, it suddenly gave and Dee tumbled forward. She caught herself, barely, against the bottom of the sill and, for a single, terrifying second, her entire upper body dangled out the window, three stories above the ground.  
  
Then hands grabbed her arms and pulled her back in. Dee put her back against the wall and collapsed to the ground, heart racing. Katie – her rescuer – was crouched in front of her. She looked up at the window, and then down again at Dee. “What happened?” she asked, reaching for one of Dee’s hands.  
  
Dee tried to muster up a convincing smile, but it came out as more of a grimace. She said, “I – I’m fine. The window was stuck – I tried to open it…” She trailed off, still not entirely sure what had really happened.  
  
“Good thing I caught you,” Katie said with a small smile. “You’d have gone splat if I hadn’t.”  
  
“Gee, thanks for the image,” Dee muttered sarcastically.  
  
Katie’s smile grew. She stood up and went to the window. She tried to move it – it slid easily. Mockingly. Katie raised an eyebrow. “Oh yes. Real sticky.”  
  
“What? No!” Dee leaped up and moved the windowpane herself. It still slid easily, with barely a sound at all. She frowned. “I wear it wasn’t like this before. I don’t know what happened, but I swear it was _stuck_.”  
  
Katie rolled her eyes. “Whatever, Dee.”  
  
“Thanks for your concern,” Dee breathed, hurt by her sister’s lack of support. Normally, Katie would be the first to back her – what was wrong here? She crossed to her bed and reached in her pack for her cell, to check for reception.  
  
Katie took hers out of her pocket as well and said, “No reception. I’ve checked, all over the house, too. Auntie Rachel said there’s some out on the field, but it’s tricky to find.” She checked her watch. “Oh, and she also says to some down to supper – she’s made chicken for us.”  
  
“‘ _Auntie Rachel_ ’?” Dee asked. “When did you start calling her that? A couple hours ago, we didn’t even know what she looked like!”  
  
"Oh, Dee,” Katie sighed, just as her mother was wont to do. She started walking out the door. “She really is a very nice old woman. You should try talking to her sometime.”  
  
Dee scowled and watched her sister leave. Then she looked at her feet and wondered if she was really being unfair. After all, Aunt Rachel _was_ family, on her mom’s side. But that didn’t stop Dee from feeling creeped out every time the old woman spoke to her. She muttered, “This whole damn _place_ is creepy. I just want to go _home_.”  
  
She wasn’t sure, but when she shut the door behind her, she thought she heard someone sob. But when she went to look, no one was there.  
  


* * *

 

Whatever the meat was, it was _not_ chicken. It was chewy and tough – maybe steak, but not any kind of chicken Dee had ever had in her life. And that included that dubious school chicken.  
  
Dee stared at her plate, poking at the chunks of somewhat-grilled mystery meat, and wondered how Katie could be shoveling it into her mouth by the forkful. Dee tore her eyes away from her plate and looked at her sister’s. It was almost empty.  
  
“Not hungry, Deanna?” Aunt Rachel asked, her creaky old voice sickeningly sweet as she said Dee’s name.  
  
Dee looked at the old woman and felt a shiver dance down her spine as she met those moonstone eyes. She managed to say, “No, not really,” before she had to look down at the tabletop again. She mentally derided herself – why couldn’t she bear look at her aunt’s eyes? What on earth was freaking wrong with her? It wasn’t just because of the color, or opaqueness, she thought, but there was something else in them…  
  
“Come on, Dee,” Katie said as she reached for seconds. “It’s delish – better than that school crap you eat for lunch.”  
  
“Don’t swear, Katharine. It’s not lady-like,” Aunt Rachel chided gently.  
  
Like a trained poodle, Katie smiled and said, “Of course, Auntie Rachel.”  
  
Dee stared at her twin, not knowing what to say. She wanted to pinch herself, to see if she was just in a really strange dream (nightmare), but then she thought that would be a bit irrational. But there was nothing really rational about this situation. There was nothing rational about Katie’s unnerving devotion to a creepy old woman she’d just met. There was nothing rational about how Katie had turned on Dee. There was nothing rational about anything that had happened since she’d stepped out of the van that afternoon.  
  
So she just shook her head and started to stand, saying, “I think I’m just going to start my homework in my room, okay…”  
  
Suddenly, Aunt Rachel’s hand was clamped down on her wrist and Dee couldn’t move at all. The old woman said, “Please, do stay, Deanna. Chat with us.” Dee felt herself nodding and sitting down again. Aunt Rachel smiled. “Good, my dear. Isn’t that nice now.”  
  
And Dee could move again, could fear the terror racing through her every nerve, but instead of running away, she just sat there in front of a full plate of mystery meat and stared out the window at the boy that had just appeared there.  
  
He was young, maybe a year or two younger than Dee, and the top of his tee-shirt was torn open. There was a horrific gash on his chest, the part visible, and the rest of his shirt was blood red. His throat was torn apart. His hair was messy, like he’d just woken up, and half his face was red. His eyes stared at Dee, boring into her soul with a strange intensity that rivaled Aunt Rachel’s gaze.  
  
“Where did you say cousin Jimmy was?” Dee found herself asking, eyes still riveted on the dead boy outside the window.  
  
“Oh, he’s… around,” Aunt Rachel replied rather cheerfully. “One can never quite tell with that boy. Have you seen him, Deanna?”  
  
The boy faded away into the night and Dee looked away. Katie was looking at her skeptically, one eyebrow raised. She’d never looked at Dee that way before – it was a look she saved for particularly stupid freshmen.  
  
Dee shook her head, too quickly. “No, no… I was just… wondering.”  
  
“I see,” Aunt Rachel said with a small half-smile. “Well, if you ever find yourself… wondering… again, just tell me and I’m sure I could find him for you. In fact, I _insist_. He’s a very charming young man, you know. Very interested in rituals and cults – he has a great deal many books on them in the library. Perhaps one of us can show you.”  
  
“Uh, that’s all right – I, uh, have a lot of homework to do this weekend, and, I, uh, already have someone,” Dee found herself babbling. She smiled unconvincingly and asked to be excused again. No force held her in place this time, so she quickly fled to the hallway. There, she sighed in relief and made her way back to her room, a bit slower. The hallways creaked, and she still had to pass several dusty portraits – these Dee scurried past as quickly as she could.  
  
She still felt their eyes on her back when the bedroom door was safely shut behind her.  
  
Dee grabbed her cell phone as soon as she’d turned the deadbolt. She needed to talk to someone. It didn’t matter if it was her friends, parents, or her ex-boyfriend. She still didn’t know why she lied to Aunt Rachel about having a boyfriend. Her mouth had run away before her brain had a chance to catch up and hold it back.  
  
There was still no cell service.  
  
“What!” Dee exclaimed and felt like tossing the cell at a wall. She felt a shiver crawl down her spine and reached for her bag. She pulled out a large hoodie, borrowed a few weeks ago from Katie. When she turned back to the window, she froze in horror.  
  
Steps sounded outside her door and Katie’s voice trickled through the wood: “Auntie Rachel said not to mind Jimmy, Dee… We’re going out for a walk in the cornfield – she’ll show me where to get reception.”  
  
Dee didn’t reply.

The dead boy floating in front of her – he’d just come in, through the wall by the window – looked even more gruesome than before. The blood on his face was fresh, coming from a large gash in his temple. His throat was torn apart, blood oozing from it slowly. One of his arms was bent at an unnatural angle. His shirt glistened with blood in the lamplight.  
  
 _He should be writhing in pain_ , Dee thought hazily.  
  
“Don’t be scared,” the boy said, his voice sloshing like he was underwater.  
  
Dee scrambled over to the trash can by the desk and vomited up what little of the mystery meat she’d been able to consume at supper. Insubstantial hands held her hair back for her, and that just caused even more dry heaves.  
  
When she finally felt done, she wiped her mouth on a bit of blanket and scooted away from the ghost.  
  
 _The ghost_.  
  
“Why are you here?” Dee asked, her voice wobbly. She closed her eyes, trying to blank the horrific image from her brain. Didn’t work.  
  
“I live here,” the ghost replied sadly. “You need to leave.”  
  
Dee opened her eyes again, leaning forward a bit. If she focused on his eyes, she could ignore the rest of him pretty well. She said, “Wait. So, are you Jimmy? And were the one with the window today?”  
  
A sad look crossed the boy’s face. “Yes, I was called Jimmy once, long ago. And yes. You need to leave.”  
  
“I can’t,” Dee replied automatically. Then she scowled. “What were you thinking? You could have _killed_ me with that stunt!”  
  
Jimmy said mournfully, “You will die as I did if you stay any longer. I felt my way was less cruel, and with more chance of scaring you away.”  
  
Dee stared at him, trying to work out how to inch away without looking like she was retreating. Her mind latched onto the one word she actually understood from all that.  
  
“Die.”  
  
“Die,” Jimmy repeated, bringing a hand up to his throat and – Dee turned away in horror. He went on, “It was a horrible thing, what my mother did to me, but she is not of her right mind…”  
  
“Well, no shit!” Dee interrupted, exploding to her feet. “This whole freaking _house_ is crazy. Hell, _I_ must be crazy – I’m talking to a _ghost_ , to you – as if you even _exist_!” She laughed, running a hand wildly through her hair.  
  
She started pacing. It calmed her down. “Okay, _Jimmy_. So if that hag is going to kill me, can you tell me why?”  
  
Jimmy shook his head. He answered, “If you do not believe in me, you would not believe what she believes – understand why she prepares her rituals, sacrifices innocents to the full moon.”  
  
“Oh, so she’s done this before?” Dee asked, voice rising in panic. “And _rituals_? Is she some kind of witch – like, part of a _cult_?”  
  
“I can only tell you what I know, and I know only that my mother’s power stems from blood drawn at the full moon,” Jimmy said, floating towards the window. In a second, he was outside, fading away. “So all I ask of you is that you keep your door locked until the moon sets this night, and to flee the house soon after. For your sister, there is little hope. She is lost to this world, save a miracle.”  
  
“Katie!” Dee gasped and ran to the window. Outside, the moon shone down on the cornfield. She wheeled around and dashed for the door, fumbling a second with the deadbolt. Her sister – and that witch – alone out there… A wave of horror gripped her and threw her through the creaky, rotten, dilapidated house until she stumbled out the back door.  
  
The moon shone brightly in the sky, almost as bright as the sun. The sky was cloudless, but Dee couldn’t see any stars. The cornfield loomed, impossibly large, in front of her. She started to run.  
  
Suddenly, something grabbed her ankle and she went down – hard. Dee lay on the ground, tears in her eyes as she tried to catch her breath. She looked down and yelled when she saw that it was a hand – a dead, rotting, human hand – that had grabbed her.  
  
Trying not to retch again, Dee tore away and started to sprint towards her sister again. Boxes flew at her head and hands grabbed at her ankles, but once she’d gotten over the initial surprise, Dee found she was pretty good at dodging everything.  
  
“Don’t go into the corn!” Jimmy wailed behind her. She just ran faster.  
  
As Dee got closer to the cornrows, a line of skeletons – _Aunt Rachel’s victims_ , Dee thought – started to dig themselves out of the ground. Dee watched them with wide eyes, but once she got within reach of them, fear and adrenaline propelled her over their flailing hands. Knees weak with relief, she stumbled into the cornfield.  
  
Immediately, everything went silent, like a curtain had come down between her and the rest of the world.  
  
Panting, Dee wanted to look behind her, to see if the zombie skeletons were still coming after her. But a force seized her and made her start walking again, through the endless rows. The corn towered over her head by a few feet, blocking most of the light from the moon. Dee shivered as she imagined her sister somewhere in here, hemmed in by the stalks, trapped with that witch – was she still alive, or…  
  
Somewhere in front of her, a girl shrieked.  
  
Dee broke into a run again. Her lungs burned, but she kept going, crashing through the cornstalks, brushing away bugs and spider webs. Katie screamed again – she was nearer this time than before. So near, in fact –  
  
Just another row of corn, then Dee stumbled out into a small crop circle. Dead corn crinkled under her feet. The moon shone down unhindered, highlighting every part of the scene in front of her.  
  
Katie lay strapped to a large stone table – _A sacrificial altar_ , Dee thought with horror – sobbing loudly. Her blouse was half-open – like Jimmy’s had been – and Dee could already see a deep gash across her chest. Jimmy’s blood-soaked shirt came to mind, and she stumbled forward desperately.  
  
Then she couldn’t move.  
  
Not a finger, not a toe.  
  
Like at supper, Dee was trapped in her own body. She could only watch helplessly as Aunt Rachel appeared from the cornstalks on the other side of the crop circle. Blood coated her hands and glistened in strange designs across her face. Her feet were bare and dirty from walking through the mud.  
  
She held a knife.  
  
A large knife.  
  
Dee stared at it, attracted, in a strange way, to how it silvered and glistened in the moonlight. She felt – she didn’t really know – but she had the feeling that there was some reason why she should be running, to be terrified – but the _light_ … She was dazzled.  
  
She felt herself being stretched out on some cold, hard surface, her hands stretched out above her and tied down. She frowned and shivered from the cold, thinking there was something important she’d forgotten. But what, she couldn’t for the life of her remember…  
  
Then nails scraped across a giant blackboard and Dee broke out of her trance. She blinked and a wave of terror crashed into her like a tsunami. She thrashed against the ropes that held her to the sacrificial altar, heart sprinting. “Katie! Katie!” she screamed until her voice was hoarse, and then screamed some more.  
  
Over her screams, Dee could hear tearing sounds, and inhuman screams. She sobbed as she screamed, trying to block the terrible noises out of her ears and mind. She’d closed her eyes long ago, not wanting to see Aunt Rachel advancing over her, butcher’s knife held high, moonstone eyes gleaming with madness…  
  
Then insubstantial hands untied her wrists and she sprang up and ran over to her sister. Dee wiped her eyes hurriedly, hoping her sister was still alive. The gash on Katie’s chest was still oozing sluggishly, but her chest rose and fell periodically. What was Dee supposed to do to stop the bleeding? RICE? Put pressure? Dee made her decision and stripped off her sweatshirt, padded it up as best she could, and pressed it onto her sister’s chest.  
  
“You have to leave now,” Jimmy said in her ear.  
  
Dee shook her head, tears blurring her vision. “No, no! Left here – parents won’t be back until Monday – and no service – oh, _Katie_!” A sob broke out of her throat, then she sniffled, wiped her nose on her arm, and asked, very carefully, “Where’s Aunt Rachel?”  
  
“My mother is gone,” Jimmy said quietly. Dee looked up at him, meeting his moonstone eyes solidly. What she saw there scared her more than the old witch ever had. She wanted to back away, to run out of the cornfield, but she knew she had to stay with her sister.  
  
“Gone,” Dee repeated, almost a question.  
  
Jimmy looked over to one side of the crop circle. Dee followed his gaze, saw a large puddle of a dark liquid, and quickly looked away.  
  
She felt nauseous. She didn’t want to, but she asked anyway: “Why are you here?”  
  
“I could not, with right conscience, let two innocents fall to my mother’s knife this night,” Jimmy said cryptically. Did that mean that before now he’d just let Aunt Rachel do this, even though he’d had the power to stop it? Dee almost asked him, but the ghost continued, “With her focus on you, I was able to come into her domain and put an end to her. Her will is gone. Her deeds are being undone.”  
  
Under her fingertips, Katie moved a bit and moaned.  
  
Dee put her hand on her sister’s cheek. It was surprisingly warm, considering how much she’d been bleeding. Dee looked back at Jimmy; he was fading away. When he spoke, his voice was muffled, like speaking through a thick curtain. “ Your sister will be well. Your cell should work. Call a taxi and leave this place. As soon as possible. Forget this night.”  
  
Then he was gone and Katie was opening her eyes. Dee took the blood-soaked sweatshirt off Katie’s chest – the gash was already healed into a long, thin scar. Dee resisted the urge to trace it, but started to undo the ropes around Katie’s wrists.  
  
“Dee?” Katie mumbled, blinking slowly. “Wha’s going on?”  
  
Dee hesitated, not knowing what to say. Then she glanced over to where what remained of Aunt Rachel lay and found her tongue. “Nothing, Katie. Just a bad dream. Sleep again – we’re going home soon.”  
  
It was lucky that Katie was still at least partly under the influence of the trance. “Mmm-kay,” she said, smiled, and closed her eyes again.  
  
Levering her onto Dee’s shoulder was somewhat difficult, but not as difficult as it was to decide where to put her until she could get a taxi to come for them. She didn’t want to go back in the house – knowing the owner was dead in the cornfield only served to heighten the creepy feeling in the confined rooms and halls – but she also didn’t want to leave her sister outside.  
  
She remembered the way the skeletons dug themselves up with alarming ease.  
  
So she left Katie in the parlor, the most open room she could find on the ground floor, leaving her only to dash up and grab all their bags in one trip. Once back in the parlor with Katie, Dee checked her cell – five bars, just as Jimmy had promised. She dialed a cab company first, requesting the first possible trip out of hicksville. It would cost, but Dee was willing to break into her savings to get away. Then Dee called her parents, leaving a short and sweet message – they’d be waiting at home, no need to go see Aunt Rachel.  
  
Once done with that, Dee crossed the parlor to the window. It slid open easily, and she almost expected something to crawl inside. But nothing did – the open area between the cornfield and the house was eerily still and silent. The moon veiled itself with clouds and the scene was plunged into darkness. Dee sighed and closed the window again.  
  
Thankfully, the lights worked long enough for the taxi to get there, and Katie woke up enough to get herself into the car by herself. The cabbie was surprised that the two sisters were there by themselves, but didn’t ask any unwanted questions. Katie woke up Sunday morning in her own bed, with almost no memories of the past twenty-four hours. Dee envied her.

 

* * *

 

  
A couple months later, Katie asked Dee where she’d put that sweatshirt she’d loaned Dee, the one Dee had brought on the trip to Aunt Rachel’s. Dee just shrugged and said that she must have lost it at school. She couldn’t tell her the truth, not when she was so mercifully unaware of how close she had come to death.  
  
But that was the last time Dee ever thought about Aunt Rachel, Jimmy, and that never-ending night in the cornfield.  
  
That didn’t mean she forgot.


End file.
